Theatre and performance studies is awash with scholarship that examines performance in relation to its labor processes, modes of management, financial infrastructures, and so forth. But there lacks shared critical understanding of what terms such as value or capital mean and how they can be applied when studying performance. The range of meanings given to such words as commodity, class, or the state reveals more than a slight degree of imprecision or disagreement. It indicates a lack of systematic thought and, consequently, a need to interrogate the categories used for discussing performance's political economy. Collectively written by nine people, this keywords project contributes to growing critical attention within performance studies towards political economy by defining key Marxist concepts and exploring how they can be applied to study performance.